I’m not sure what your Christmas Eve plans include, but I know at least some of what I’ll be doing this year. I’ll be watching a late afternoon football game. Later in the evening, we’ll be heading to our Christmas Eve service to celebrate the wonder and joy of the coming of our Savior and Lord, Jesus Christ. And, I fully expect that what I see and hear in both places will give me contrasting glimpses into the proper and improper ways that we understand and celebrate glory.

Based on what we see over and over again in football games at just about every level, players who break up a pass, sack the quarterback, catch or run for a first down, or score a touchdown will go out of their way to go beyond letting their accomplishments speak for themselves. They will pound their chests, do a celebratory dance, or taunt opposing fans in ways that scream “Look at me and what I just did!” Because we’ve been so conditioned by the repetition and regularity of these arrogant displays, we think nothing of them. In fact, we cheer for and thereby feed our own team’s glory-seeking displays. We think that “This is normal, it’s the way things are, the way things have always been, and the way things are supposed to be.” Let’s be honest here: In every area of our lives we’ve come to believe that there’s nothing wrong with trumpeting our accomplishments and seeking glory. We believe “It’s all about me!”

Traditionally, glory-seeking, or vainglory, is seen as one of the seven deadly sins. In her book Glittering Vices: The New Look at the Seven Deadly Sins and Their Remedies, Rebecca Konyndyk DeYoung defines vainglory as “the excessive and disordered desire for recognition and approval from others.” It’s all about swagger, arrogance, and braggadocio. It is the desire for attention, recognition, and acclaim. It’s evidence of our desire for others to see and acknowledge not only our accomplishments, but our very selves.

All of us live in this “image is everything” world. Few, if any, of us will ever get to strap on the pads and indulge in glory-seeking in front of a stadium filled with 60,000 fans and millions more watching on TV. But that doesn’t mean we are immune from the twin cancers of glory-hogging and honor-hunger. What we see on the playing field is really about you, me, and our kids. You see, the same disordered desires simmer endlessly in the very depths of our being, and they boil over into our lives in so many different ways. Rooted in our sinful and broken hearts, vainglory exposes our deep insecurities and human pride.

In today’s world, perhaps the most obvious breeding-houses and playgrounds where our personal vainglory boils over is social media. Like those all-too-familiar family Christmas letters of the past, our posts are all-too-often outright expressions of conceit, or thinly-veiled “humblebrags.” Is there a place that breeds more competition, comparison, envy, and conceit than our 24/7 online world? We’d be hard-pressed to find one. In fact, a growing mountain of data tells us just how dangerous a social media world marked by vainglory actually is. We see reports on how loneliness, anxiety, depression, physical illnesses, joylessness, despair, and more – all rooted in our sense of seeing and feeling ourselves as “less than” – are going viral among young and old alike. It seems that our glory-seeking ways are resulting in the exact opposite outcomes of what we earnestly desire and hope they will produce.

And that leads me from Christmas Eve football to a Christmas Eve service that’s all about the coming of Christ. You see, we will sing a host of carols and traditional Christmas hymns that echo the words of the Angels: “Glory to God in the highest.” Just as seeking glory for ourselves is a disordered desire that results in only escalating our battle with insignificance, seeking the Glory of God is the only path to wholeness.

The Westminster Shorter Catechism asks this question: “What is the chief end of man?” The answer: “To glorify God and enjoy Him forever!” The Gospel is about God in His mercy and grace doing for us what we could not do for ourselves. Jesus came to rescue us from all of our sin, brokenness, and disordered desires. The Gospel creates an entirely new view of self that is not based on competing with and comparing ourselves to others. Rather, it is about salvation by grace that allows us to find our sense of worth in who we are in and through Jesus Christ. In the Gospel we find the freedom to stop indulging in practicing vainglory. Ultimately, vainglory is a path of destruction just as it was for our first parents (Genesis 3). In their desire to “become like God,” they cut themselves off from God. Thank God that He has given us a way out of our self-serving bondage through Jesus Christ. In grateful response to God’s grace, we are to live to His glory and His glory alone.

As you celebrate Christmas with your family, talk about God’s glory and the glorious message of the Incarnation. Shut down your own battle with social media vainglory by shutting down your phones for the day. Save your kids from the online world of seeking to satisfy their glory-hunger through glory-hogging. Reflect on these words from the Apostle Paul to the Corinthians: “Let the one who boasts, boast in the Lord. For it is not the one who commends himself who is approved, but the one whom the Lord commends” (2 Corinthians 10:17-18).